[ExI] pfizer on directed evolution

Thu Feb 2 19:32:00 UTC 2023

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Will Steinberg via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] pfizer on directed evolution

>…He was a consultant, as he noted in the video even and as can be seen in archived posts that direct to his LinkedIn page.  I would very much believe that pharma companies outsource their most unethical experiments… Will

OK, I couldn’t find any LinkIn page or any digital footprint.  I concluded he was fake or an assistant cage cleaner or something.  He already told us he was a liar, so I assumed he was a nobody, posing as a director, to get laid.  What is he, about 30?  Does Pfizer make directors out of 30 year old children?  

But your last comment is most disturbing.  This entire horrifying nightmare  seems ever more likely an unethical experiment outsourced by US pharma companies or the CDC to China, where it is legal, and more dangerous.  As that has become a more prominent and plausible theory on the origin of covid-19, I see plenty of Twitter posts relating how casually life is treated in China, as well as other tales of horror, such as reprehensible disregard for worker safety.

Regarding that directed evolution business again: if a private citizen had a bat cave or a basement full of bat cages and an ordinary lab centrifuge, she could direct evolution towards a more benign strain of corona virus, just be repeatedly selecting the least-impacted bats and reinfecting the others with plasma from that guy.  If she could breed a strain that is nearly harmless, and that strain would confer immunity from its more deadly cousins, then that would be a good thing, ja?  Of course she risks unleashing a planet killer, but mad scientists do things like that.  

In principle, what has happened in the past 3 years is that we have all been given a very expensive education in virology.  Hell even I, a space case, now think that I could theoretically perform directed evolution (don’t worry, I won’t.)  That line of reason will surely occur to anyone with the means to have her own bat cave, which includes plenty of people.  Hell I even have one, if I include property far away from where I live.

spike

On Thu, Feb 2, 2023, 12:30 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> > wrote:

Pfizer says they aren’t doing it.  They haven’t made any statement regarding any employee named Jordan Tristan Walker, so I would guess the video freak-out guy was likely a phony, or perhaps a lower-level employee, or a contractor or something.  He looked pretty young to be a director of anything.  In any case, here’s Pfizer’s response:

New York, N.Y., January 27, 2023 – Allegations have recently been made related to gain of function and directed evolution research at Pfizer and the company would like to set the record straight.

In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research. Working with collaborators, we have conducted research where the original SARS-CoV-2 virus has been used to express the spike protein from new variants of concern. …

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